Take this job — and love it

Sometimes going to
work is a chore. The daily grind means deadlines to meet, grumpy colleagues to
deal with, demanding bosses to please and piles of work that never seem to get
smaller. And some days, it feels like there’s never a way to break free from
routine.

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But, there are ways to overcome routine and boredom at work, even to love your job. Several LinkedIn Influencers weighed in on just how to put the spark back into your job, what it means to be in love with your work and six things you can do before breakfast to make your day a success. Here’s what some of them had to say.

“Even the most exciting job can go a bit stale after a while, and at first we don’t even notice,” wrote Marr in his post Bored at Work? Here’s What to Do. “Once boredom has taken hold it affects how we feel about our job, our career and life as a whole. We become a little less happy… and we lose… the drive and hunger we felt at the beginning.”

Sound familiar? A job and a career can feel similar to a relationship or even marriage, wrote Marr. In the beginning, there are sparks and exciting moments, then routine sets in and boredom begins. But, wrote Marr, “marriage is for life, most jobs aren’t.” That’s why changing jobs has always been one way to stop boredom from creeping into a career, he wrote.

“But what if you don’t want to change jobs yet or if boredom kicks in earlier than expected,” Marr asked. Marr offered 10 ways to put the spark back into your workday. Among them:

“Stop the autopilot,” wrote Marr. That is, take an “outsider’s perspective” of your job or career. “Removing yourself for a little while from the daily routine and looking at everything with an objective mind will help you find things you could change,” he wrote.

“Learn something new… Study a new and exciting thing related to your job,” Marr suggested. “Building skills is not only good for killing boredom but also a sound career investment.”

“Work in a different place. Maybe it’s going into the same office each day that is the problem,” Marr wrote. If your company allows such flexibility, working from home or from a coffee shop on some days could break the cycle, he wrote.

Gurbaksh Chahal, chairman and chief executive officer at RadiumOne

Ever have one of those days where it’s hard to just get out of bed? The rest of the day at the office usually follows suit — difficult and cumbersome. “Have a good start to your day and you’ll greatly enhance your chances of having a successful day, every day,” wrote Chahal in his post 6 Things You Can Do Before Breakfast to Make Your Day a Success. For starters, he wrote, “many of the most accomplished people on the planet have been shown to be early risers.”

Chalal wrote that what really counts is what you do with that extra time, “Knowing how to leverage your time before breakfast will undoubtedly have a positive and productive outcome.”

So, what, exactly, can you do before your morning meal that will make a difference to your day and work success? Chahal offers six tips, habits of successful early risers. Among them:

“Take time to think,” Chahal wrote. “This might be the only quiet time of the day, your only chance to be alone and able to seriously reflect on everything that’s happening in your life. It’s your opportunity before the hurly-burly of the “work day” to let your mind wander and do some big picture thinking.”

“Focus on today. Plan your day ahead. Visualize the success you are going to enjoy,” he wrote. But first shake off any hangover from the day before. Don’t carry forward any stresses or aggravations. Wipe the slate clean and make a new beginning.”]If you need to take corrective action of any kind make sure that you do so with the right attitude for a new day. And don’t forget about attitude, Chahal suggested. “Start with positivity and that will set the stage for the rest of your day.”

Loving your job isn’t always easy, wrote Kerpen — even for him. “My day is not always filled with joy and happiness,” he wrote. But, “I’ve always been taught (and believed) that the day you’re not happy and excited to go into work is the day you should find something new.”

Of course, that’s not always easy. But, finding that something new “is worth doing,” Kerpen wrote. “Time is too precious to waste on any job you don’t love.”

How, exactly, do you fall in love and stay in love with a job? Find something you feel passionate about, Kerpen wrote. “Being in love is a state of mind, one that you can have with someone or with something, like a job,” he wrote.

“We still spend more of our waking hours with our work than with our family,” he wrote. “So, I figure… I ought to be in love with my job.”